Welcome back! Heading into another crazy week around here…

Alas, winter break is slowly fading away and we’re going to be getting back at it again here.  I already posted places to start talking about the first readings for this week; here’s a post that is a bit of “news of what was and news of what will be coming up” this next week. And as a spoiler alert: some of this post is about me making excuses.

Let me first point folks to a blog post on my site called “MOOC and Pony Show,” which is a bit about a presentation I gave in San Diego at a conference for the American Federation of Teachers. Here’s a link to the presentation, by the way.  It went well, though it has been a much bigger time commitment than I had planned and I really haven’t planned my travel well at all. I got back from San Diego on a “red eye” this morning, and in less than 60 hours, I am getting on a plane for Las Vegas. More on that in a second.

A couple of things I’m really looking forward to this week:  the “MOOC Debriefing Essay” is due Monday– just post that as a page to your blog (that way others can see it too) and I’ll be reading them and commenting on them soon.  We’re also going to be kicking off the video book review presentations with a couple of videos from Sarah T. and Melissa S., who will if nothing else earn gold stars for going first.  I think they’ll be set by Wednesday; but let me use this as a chance to remind everyone that if you need any help wrestling with the video or any of the other technical issues, let me know and I’ll do what I can do. But let me know in advance!  Emailing me the week your video is due to ask for help is kinda too late.

The other thing I’m looking forward to but which complicates things for the week is (as I’ve already mentioned) I’ll be out of town again, this time for the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing conference and for the College Composition and Communication Convention, both of which will be in Las Vegas.  That’s important for me to share with you all for two basic reasons.  First, this is just going to put me further behind, though I am hoping to find some downtime in there to finish up some participation grading and of course to continue to participating in things online. But if you don’t see the kind of responses from me that are typical when I’m parked in front of my computer all day, that’s why.

Second, I might be asking you for some help.  My ATTW presentation is part of a roundtable on everyone’s favorite topic, MOOCs, and my brief talk (and I mean really brief, like 5 minutes) is going to be about how the hype of MOOCs has simply not lived up to the actual experience. The title of my talk is “The M is for Meh,” so you can see the somewhat humorous/snarky take I am trying to have on this.

Anyway, one of the things I’d like to do is quote some of your reactions to E-Learning and Digital Cultures that you have written about in your debriefing essay. This is very informal, would be completely anonymous, and I of course would ask your permission.  But if you could help me out with this, I’d definitely appreciate it.  If you are okay right now with me quoting you anonymously, shoot me an email saying “sure, that’s fine.”  Even if you don’t do that, I still might ask.

Okay, on with the week!